After proceeding parallel to the river for six or seven
miles, I crossed to the right bank. The stream was undivided,
and about a hundred yards broad. It had a
considerable velocity, and was about three feet deep in
the centre. Its bed was full of large waterworn boulders
and gravel, and the banks on both sides were, for a great
distance from the river, of similar structure, and so little
elevated above its surface, that a very slight rise of the
water would have been sufficient to submerge them.
From the village of Tsatti, at which I encamped on.
the 14th of October, I followed the course of the Shayuk
to its junction with a large stream descending from the
north, which, from the name of the district in which the
junction is situated, is commonly called the Nubra river.
Thence I ascended the latter stream for about twenty
miles, with the intention of making an attempt to penetrate
to the north-east, across the mountains to the
Nubra Chu of Vigne; but the lateness of the season,
and especially the occurrence of several falls of snow,
which extended down the mountain slopes almost as far
as the plain, induced me to place reliance on the assurances
of the people of the valley, that the difficulties of
the road would be quite insurmountable.
The district of Nubra includes the whole course of the
Shayuk river, from its great bend to the eastward of the
point where I joined it below Digar, till it again contracts
nine or ten miles below the village of Unmaru; and
also the lower part of the valley of the Nubra river, as far
up, indeed, as population and cultivation extend. The
place of junction of the two rivers is elevated, accordingO
to my observation of the boiling-point of water, about
10,600 feet above the level of the sea. This may be
considered as the mean elevation of the whole district;
for the cultivated tracts nowhere rise to any height above
the bed of the rivers, which have everywhere a very gentle
and apparently uniform inclination.
The valley of the Shayuk is widest at the point of its
junction with the Nubra river. At this place the level
plain, including the gently sloping alluvium on each side,
has a breadth of about six miles. The width of the valley
gradually diminishes as we recede from the centre,
the mountains encroaching more and more, till at last
they hem in the river, leaving no space for villages or
cultivation, and the valley ceases to be inhabited. The
centre of the plain is uniformly occupied by a flat gravelly
expanse, one to three miles in width, scarcely raised
above the surface of the river, which, when flooded, covers
a great part of it. On both sides of this gravelly bed, low
platforms of alluvium, in the form of triangles, with their
apices resting on the mountain ravines, slope very gently
towards the base of mountains, which rise abruptly and
precipitously on both sides of the valley, to a height of
three or four thousand feet. Some of the more projecting
spurs, even where the width of the valley is greatest,
advance so far into the open plain as to abut
upon the river and compel the traveller to ascend their
slopes, in order to cross them in travelling from village
to village.
The gravelly plain over which the Shayuk flows, is
usually quite devoid of vegetation. A few scattered
bushes of Tamarix and Myricaria appear, indeed, near
its junction with the Nubra river, but further up the
o